Tag Archives: home education

Thursday morning after Halloween the boys went to play in the forest behind our house. I wasn’t too fussed as they do this all the time. This time however, Riley came back with one friend and was crying, saying his eyes stung. I put a cloth on his face, took it off after a few minutes and he was like a beetroot. After trying in vain to get any details at all about how this could have happend, I remembered something very important.

Erik and friend No 2 were not home.

So now I was trying to work out what was going on with Riley’s face and eyes, find something to give him to take the pain/swelling away, try to keep Will and Riley calm and look for Erik and friend No 2. They had been playing hide and seek in the Forest when Riley’s face started burning and puffing up.

Mark ( the voice of reason) said it must be some sort of reaction ( durrr) but he had anti-histamines up stairs, Gave Riley one and he started to settle after 10 minutes, But I still had no Erik and friend. Will refused to go to the forest to look for them so a drugged sleepy Riley and friend No 1 said they would go look for them, by this time they had been there for 1 1/2 hours.

Erik had decided enough was enough and they were making their way home.

Erik took the 2 friends to club so Riley could stay home and sleep the tablet off. It was a quiet day, Erik was at club, Logan was still at her friends Riley slept, Will just bounced about like he does.

The weekend flew by and we are back to Tuesday and have started some resemblance of schooling. Logan and Erik started on their GCSE subjects ( English Lit, Macbeth, and Sociology) today they did Latin and Riley is doing a radio history and attempting to make a Home ed pod-cast. Tomorrow we will be doing their Saxon maths, reading our new book for book club and some sociology/Macbeth work. I will also attempt to get Will to sit down for 5 minutes without a digital camera in his hand or printing something from the computer I am not fussy what he does it could be a puzzle, game, drawing, even writing his name over and over again. I just really need him to stop bouncing and printing.

At the moment if you ask him to do anything he answers;

Can I print it??

If I ask him to come to me I get

” Can’t, printing”

At first it was funny but we have what feels like 500 pictures of most cbeebie characters floating around the house.

For anyone that is interested I am busy reading “Sense and Sensibility” to escape from my chaotic household

The boys have had friends stay for the past 2 nights, Tuesday to Wednesday it was fairly peaceful. We all carved pumpkins to put out so the neighbours knew treats were to be had at our house. Sweets were stacked high in the container, then hidden from the monsters, zombies and skeletons in my house. The excitement of Halloween hit around 5pm when it started getting dark.

There was a lovely feel as we went out to decorate the house, 2 of the neighbours were doing the same so we shouted chatted across the shrubs to each other and all the homeward bound parents knowing we would be seeing them and their children later in the night. After donning appropriate gear all 5 children were off with me in front with Will. And what a haul. The boys 2 friends don’t do Halloween in their area because it’s a bit too rough so they really had a great time, and the beauty of it was that by 8pm it was all over. We had been given and handed out lollies for only a few hours, when the last trickle of trick or treader’s came by at 8:30pm we had run out, luckily we had plenty of the kids haul so they gave a few of there lollies to them.

Then the fun began, we had 4 kids on a sugar high. Will was too tired for the sugar to make any difference so he went up to bed. I walked in and I was faced with 4 people standing on the arms of the couch, One look and Erik and Riley jumped down looked at their friends and said, “we’re not aloud to stand on the couch” I had the brain wave to get help in getting the bedding down so they could all sleep in the lounge and keep upstairs relatively quiet for Will and I to go to bed. What followed was 1 hour of mattress sledding, We turned a blind eye to it till Riley went head first into the wall.

Hospital was averted with an ice pack and some arnica.

I asked them if they wanted to watch “Shaun of the Dead” it’s more funny and gross than scary. They chose a cartoon of a current movie and were asleep within an hour!!!

We pictured a night of bouncy hyper people who we would have to tell to be quiet every 10 minutes. Well Mark would have to, I can sleep through anything, and often do. Mark being a very light sleeper wakes to squirrels on the roof.

I actually managed to send 2 kids home and be able to say the HAD sleep.

Now I know this might sound silly, but we had been “forgetting ” to put Will to bed. It sound insane but it isn’t. Will gets into a happy groove at night and plays really well, then all of a sudden we realise it’s 10pm and we have to drag a very grumpy ( because he is so overtired) Will upstairs kicking and screaming. What a joy, I wont even go into how restless his sleep has been. This is kind of my excuse so forgive the somewhat weak argument.

Will is the only little boy in the house, so when he plays well we sort of “forget” that he is a little boy that really really needs sleep, and not a teenager that thrives on late nights. Last Friday I was so tired, I made a plan to do a

toilet

teeth

books and

sleep

routine with Will, I warned him bed time was in 5 minutes. Then he happily went and did all the above. I sat with him in the family bed till he went to sleep. We have been doing it all weekend and so far Will is so much happier and so are we, his night time dancing has settled right down.

The boys have also changed bunk beds so now Erik is on the bottom and Riley is on top. For some reason this has made Erik sleep much better. So much better in fact that today he sat with Riley and showed/taught him how to read an analog watch. Riley has wanted a watch with a face not a digital time for awhile, but no matter what I did he didn’t get it. Today after a few minutes it finally clicked and he has been happily announcing the time every 15-20 minutes since then.

Life is great when it all comes together.

Oh and on the weekend we went to Trafalgar square to see the Diwali celebrations but that’s for another post

The kids are still in Holiday mode, I can’t get anyone to do anything.

All the boys will do is xbox, I can’t even grasp some far out concept of how this is educational, I might of come up with some imaginary argument a few years ago now it is old and boring.

I can only get Logan to read at her leisure. This is great,but, her and Erik have a list a mile long of catch up work for GCSE’s. After a mini argument with Logan where I once again got the ” Well when am I going to use this in life” I answered back

” I don’t care if you never use it but I want you to do it, remember it, pass a test on it and get into college, Got it!! ”

She still hasn’t picked up Macbeth though.

I am feeling deflated at the moment and worry that they will aspire to nothing and end up working in McDonald or something worse.

I need to talk to someone who can say ” yes I feel the same way” but at group no one ever says anything bad it is always rosy. I wouldn’t put them into school but I need a plan to get them motivated again.

I think this is all stemming from Will and his inability to sleep nice and almost still at the moment. He has never had his own bed and I have happily fed and him held him to sleep. He self weaned awhile ago and now I want him to get the hint he needs to sleep in his own bed.

I spend the night with him wrapped around my neck. That or lying across my belly.

Will is having a great comfy sleep every night, so he tells me every morning.

Last week the kids had a check up at the dentist, not surprisingly Erik needed a filling, Erik’s asthma medication strips the enamel off his teeth. What was surprising was that Logan needed a filling, not just one of those little white ones for a little bit of a hole, she needed a filing for a cavity, one that needed to be numbed and drilled and then filled.

Logan is petrified of needles, the girl that has her belly button, nose and lip pierced is needle phobic, we talked a lot about how the needle was going to hurt, but then it will numb her mouth and she wont feel the drill, it all seemed OK and she went to the dentist without being dragged.We thought she was going to be fine.

But , no she wasn’t o.k.

We had to almost drag a 5’8″ 15 year old into the dentist, Will was panicking so I had to take him out and leave Logan in their. Within minutes she was lead out by the assistant, Logan was sobbing.

I was standing in the middle of the surgery holding my sobbing 15 year old, and I couldn’t remember the last time she needed her mum to hold her and make it better, and I wanted to start crying too.

At 15 years old she has developed a “I’m too cool ” persona, when I ask for a hug I get an awkward embrace and a pat on the back. I never get the little girl who clings to my shoulder.

When she had slightly calmed down I looked at her and was struck by how young she looked. Most of her eye make-up was now on me, and she had that puff, red face you get when you cry and she looked so young. I know she is young but she is always so dressed up and full of make-up that she doesn’t look her age, people always think she is at least 18, on the plane she kept getting offered wine, while me, the harassed mum got offered coffee.

In a flash she was my little girl again and I have to remember that, even though she acts grown up and is very responsible, she is still a baby.

And then I went and bought her High heels and the spell was broken. I am back to mainly being needed for my cashcard

I’m still pretty much zoning out on the odd day, my body is still dragging it’s self back to U.K. time. The kids on the other hand and here in body and spirit.

Last year we had a bit of grief with Logan being a bit of an ” emo Kid” as she put it, so after talking to her, banging my head against a brick wall, talking to her, threatening to hide modem for the computer, and letting her work some things out we are starting to come out the other side.

This weekend she went to an old friends house and hung out came home on Sunday in time to go to shooting with Erik then they went out for dinner,it is so nice to have the old Logan back.

Erik is doing all the Work for Duke of Edinburgh even though he is to young to really participate, that’s were the shooting comes in. I don’t normally send my kids out with a shotgun and say

” Go for it, what can you hit”.

But Erik is really good at it, surprisingly,freakishly good at it.

It is harder to find the volunteer work side of it as most places wont do it till the child is at least 14.

But Logan will be doing it though, I don’t know what or where but I will be finding her volunteer work if it kills me.

Riley had a very quiet weekend, which was odd as he is normally the social butterfly and we have to track him down. this weekend I only had to walk upstairs talk to him.

As for the grown ups in the house??

We did nothing, our big excitement was walking over to the shop to get the paper. I have been knitting a cardie from

I love how most of Stephanie Japels patterns are top down raglans, so the front back and sleeves are all done at the same time till you get to the underarm, you can see and try on what you knit along the way. I really want to find a child’s pattern the same so I can try it out on Will.

Will, by the way, is walking around the house wearing nothing but a Dorothy the dinosaur tail.

Logan spent the morning on the computer, then went to the library, then wanted to go back on the computer, when I pointed out that she had been on it long enough and should go and read she replied with

“But all the books I got are boring ”

Riley is , for some reason, wondering around wearing only a towel

Erik is doing I don’t know what but it alternated between him stopping to stare at me when I walk past (he’s in the lounge-room so I’m not too worried) and wandering the house.

As for me I was wondering if it was too early , and sad , to have a drink of red wine at 1pm.

The Highlight

Walking halfway to the shop before realising I still had my pj bottoms on under my dress.